[EricH]

Originally Posted by Partiot Force

One thought was to attach a spring to the front of the upright post attached to the frame and the other end of the spring to the hinged part of the goal post putting the spring in tension therefore pulling it down over the edge of the frame and then having a winch attached to the other side of the goal post to pull it back up. However, after reading the rules this morning that would be illegal as the non-electrical device, the spring, would be storing energy while at rest.

I suggest reading R34 again. Particularly R34-C. Pay careful attention to the part in parenthesis. (I could swear I saw a Q&A on this, but now I can't find it. If someone does, it'd be great if they could link it. Actually, I found it. Q74, which directs everybody asking to R34-C.)

We could always switch the spring and have it pull the "goal post" back up and the winch pull the "goal post" down but then we do not know how to make a winch out of a motor.

I can think of at least one other configuration, with the motor's winch pulling in both directions, eliminating the spring entirely (but, as I noted above, R34 doesn't ban storage of energy at the start of the match). I'll get to the winch part next.

We can not find a pulley kit at andymark to turn one of our motors into a winch.

We do apologize that you guys have to do some engineering. I'm pretty sure VexPro doesn't carry pulley kits either.

That said, AndyMark does carry hubs, lots of hubs. I suspect attaching a round piece of material to one of those, with a hole drilled for whatever cable you're using to pull with, will do quite nicely. Out of curiosity, what motor are you thinking of using? I might have a couple of suggestions on that too.


One note on the pneumatic suggestion: If you aren't already using pneumatics, I'd hold off on that until you're sure you've got enough weight to spare for a full system/you know somewhat how to use them.